My players are still traveling through the Underdark and are now a party of 5 Level 7 PCs. As such, the random encounters within Out of the Abyss usually don’t pose much a problem. I have started by rolling for those random encounters and just narrating the encounters since its basically guaranteed that they will win with minimal resource loss. However, I don’t want all travel to be “fast travel” and so I’ve written some of my own encounters. This encounter starts with the DM reading the following:

“You travel down a long tunnel barely 10ft wide and see the familiar glow of Faerzres or Faerzres crystals barely glowing at the end of it.  Even before you reach where the glow is coming from, you feel the tunnel get uncomfortably warm and muggy.  As you reach the end of the tunnel, it opens to a large cavern — you hear the sound of water gurgling and splashing — the occasional WOOSH as the water flies into the air.  The cavern is filled with boiling, murky waters with several large vents protruding spraying hot water into the air.  A head of you, about 30ft, is a cliff with a wooden bridge attached.”

• Ceilings are 90ft high
• Water has slow current to east – water dries up 250ft further down tunnel through cracks and evaportion.
• All water is boiling
  • DC 15 CON save if in the water – 2d6 Fire damage or half on save per round
  • Waterfall is difficult terrain and within 5ft of geyser is difficult terrain and disadvantage on CON save
• 10 Steam Mephit
  • Hide within the steam — immune to fire damage (and thus steam)
  • DC 18 WIS (Perception) to see (DC 13 for non-sight based perceptions)
  • 2-3 Mephits can work simultaneously to pick a player up (Uses all 3 actions)
    • Combined STR Check against Creature’s 14 STR (Athletics) or DEX (Acrobatics) to prevent
    • Move at half speed while carrying
  • When killed they disappear into steam and dissipate.
  • All Mephits have Blur cast on themselves at the start of the fight
    • Remember CON saves for concentration 
  • If PCs linger (to get the treasure for example), Steam Mephitis will respawn from the major steam vents after 10*1d6 minutes.  
• Treasure
  • Boiling waters
    • DC 20 WIS (Perception) to find anything in the waters – can search once per round.
    • 1 – 2200 GP
    • 2 – Carnelian (50 gp)
    • 3 – 3 x Chalcedony (50 gp)
    • 4 – Zircon (50 gp)
    • 5 – Spell Scroll (Light) (common, dmg 200)
    • 6 – Potion of Climbing (common, dmg 187)
    • 7 – 4 x Potion of Healing (common, dmg 187)
    • 8 – Potion of Superior Healing (rare, dmg 187)
    • 9 – Mage Killer’s Javelin
    • 10 – Pouch of Dust of Dryness (1d6+4)

This encounter went really well and was a lot of fun. I added sound effects of impish laughter and the players were VERY surprised when a group of Mephits could work together to carry one of them and drop them into the boiling water! This may seem OP, but each Mephit has an average STR check of 7, so it works. Trust me, I wasn’t rolling too great and they only succeeded once, but the threat was enough to keep it fun.

Also note, that the gap from the broken bridge is able to be long-jumped by characters with high enough STR. My players chose to use ropes and a crude contraption created by the Artificer instead though.

Finally, the treasures can be replaced, I rolled some of them from random tables and others I just added. It is possible to get this treasure even with the Mephits. The 2d6 damage is not great, but its tankable and if you have fire resistance its definitely doable. I always like to come up with a plan to beat my own encounters to make sure they can. In this case the plan was this: The Tieflng has 61HP and Fire Resistance, So, if the rest of the players form a circle around him to defend from spawning Steam Mephits and the Druid readies healing spells, then in theory they can continue searching until all treasures are retrieved. My players didn’t both and so missed out, but its still good for the encounter.

This is just a quick post with an idea and some assets that worked well for me in my Out of the Abyss campaign. I’ve developed quite a few custom encounters for Underdark Travel and wanted there to be something to discern which of those encounters I throw at the players. Obviously I could just roll on a table and choose one — but instead I’ve kind of mapped out a couple of decision points and what they incur will depend on what they do. This is a very simple encounter that starts with the DM reading the following:

About the middle of the day you reach a split in the tunnel, and it looks new.  Rock and debris all around and you are reminded that the Underdark may be ancient but it is not static.  The ramp of rock that once rose about 30 feet up to continue the tunnel lays in a rubble heap — though the tunnel itself seems to be there above you.  The reason for its collapse is clear as you stare a 20ft hole in the floor of the cavern leading to another tunnel that seems to head in a similar direction. — What do you do?”

At this point I show them following images to give them a real sense of what they’re dealing with. Its not an easy climb to make it up the way they wanted to go — but on the other hand this new tunnel path may not go where they want. Decisions… decisions…

You can make the gap as big or as small as you want, same with the fall if that occurs. I put in a little 3D man to give a sense of the size of it. This isn’t intended to be a difficult encounter, but it is fun and can bring out some creativity and often some humor.

My players chose to have the Owlkocra PC fly up to the higher tunnel and use some pitons to attach ropes. Unfortunately, he didnt roll well to find good deep cracks to wedge them, and the Steel Defender of our Artificer fell almost halfway up as he tried to Monkey Crawl along the rope. Steel Defenders are easily fixed by their creators and so mostly it was just humorous to hear them work through that, and then to WAY overengineer the pitons at the top after that. Several of them came up with creative uses of rope to make safety harnesses or similar and this gave them advantage on any DEX Saving throws in the event they did fall. Finally after a rather large build up, the Druid, who is not known for his strength, just did a wildshape into a Giant Centipede and climbed up the walls — easy peasy.

Feel free to use these image assets. I rendered them from a model of the cave I sculpted in Blender so they are all free to use.

Its often just said that Gohlbrorn is the Dwarvish word for Bulette in Forgotten Realms. But if you go back to AD&D 2nd Edition, Dragon Magazine did a special stat block for the Gohlbrorn, separate from the Bulette. It was intended to be the smaller, quicker and meaner Underdark version. I’ve attempted to update the 2E stat block to 5E by comparing the relative abilities between the Bulette and the Gohlbrorn in 2E and then using the Bulette from the 5E Monster Manual. I also had to take some liberties by using the WOTC Guide to Conversion for 5E. Let me know what you think.